RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

Thanks for this fun fanart from Galaghast!

Though I’ve sung this song thousands of times on stage when I was Beetlejuice in the “Graveyard Revue” at Universal Studios Hollywood, I still love it to this day. It’s been on my mind the past week because I saw a hysterical video of a little dog prancing and walking down a hallway, and his owners set “Shake Senora” by Harry Belafonte to the video. Funny video! Great song!

 

Monday the 12th – THIS IS THE END! – Since my dog Roxy was in dire need of a bath, Michelle and I walked her over to the groomer’s and dropped her off. We walked over to Panera and had lunch on the patio, stopped by CVS to pick up a few items, over to Kit Kraft to pick up some paint for my Frankie Christoween ornament, and then we walked back to the groomer’s to pick up Roxy. We had been out and about just long enough for her to complete her grooming. But when she came out I could tell that her back legs were very fatigued and weak. This also happened with my dog Sassie as she advanced in age. Getting groomed requires them to stand for long periods of time, and even spend time in a cage until it’s their turn to get groomed. Roxy has become too mature to be able to withstand that routine any longer. It made me a bit sad, because it meant that she could no longer visit Rusty’s for grooming, and it also meant that my soon-to-be 13 year old beloved dog was getting on in years. Before walking back home we let her rest for a bit, and then we headed home. I’m going to start shopping around for a mobile groomer now. I got back home to do some fun auditions. I read Michelle the first Christoween story “Frankie-fied!” and she had an interesting suggestion regarding the artwork in the book, as it related to the story. I realized she was totally right in her idea, and I sat down at the computer to change the artwork immediately and upload the revised illustrations to Shutterfly. That meant that I would need to do a FOURTH proof printing, but I think all the mistakes have been fixed now. I’m really liking it now! I also fixed a few other things in the book before getting more printed. Then I typed out Wally’s Week. As the sun began to rise on Tuesday morning, I made Michelle and I some hot dogs on the grill and we watched another episode of “The Lone Ranger.”

Tuesday the 13th – MORE CHRISTOWEEN STUFF! – The first stop in our errands was to head to my mailbox as I had been notified that the third proof printing of “Frankie-fied!” had arrived from Shutterfly. It didn’t matter much because the artwork was all going to change soon anyway. But it’s good to have it anyway. We stopped by Goodwill to drop off some donated items I no longer needed, and then we headed to Jim Ojala’s studio to pick up the first resin “pull” from the Frankie Christoween ornament that I had sculpted. We hit Burger King for some drive-thru lunch and then we headed back to my house so I could clean and prime the Frankie ornament head. I can’t wait to start working on this!

Wednesday the 14th – 70’s STAR AT PROFILES! – I needed to be at the offices of Profiles in History in Agoura Hills by 1 to meet up with a prominent 70’s TV star. I would be facilitating the delivery of some of his personal artifacts from his collection for the upcoming auction. (More details to come when I can speak more about it) It was a very fun time, and as the Profiles staff went through the items to log them the 70’s legend regaled us with several amazing stories from his career in entertainment. And oddly enough, in the over 2 hour meeting, not many of his stories can be repeated here! They were THAT good! I was lucky enough to get over to Kit Kraft before they closed to buy some spray paint that I needed for my Frankie Christoween ornament. The paints I had bought on Monday were brush-on, but for the overall tone of the head I needed to spray it first. Then I went home to give it a few coats and let it dry. I did an audition, some work around the house, and got on my Shutterfly account and did some final tweaking for the 4th printing of the “Frankie-fied!” Christoween book. Even after going through this book many, many times – I was still finding errors and room for improvement. Luckily there were some pretty tasty coupons that had found their way into my e-mail so once I finalized the layout I ordered up 6 copies; 3 to sell with Frankie Stalkings, 1 for my illustrator Luke, 1 for my attorney Stephanie, and 1 for me. The base coast of the Frankie Christoween ornament had dried, so I started painting the details (eyes, teeth, scar, stitches, etc). I headed to Denny’s to get some food to go and came home to watch another 2 epsiodes of “The Lone Ranger” before bed.

Thursday the 15th – “EYE” THINK I NEED A CHANGE! – The bolts in the Frankie Christoween ornament’s head will be actual hexagon bolts. I found some really nice ones at the hardware store last week, but I started thinking that I might like to get some with a 5/8” stem, instead of a ¾” stem. Unfortunately, no luck. They came with either a ½” stem or a ¾” stem. I bought a few metric bolts, but I didn’t like those as much. I went to get my mail at my box and I got a dozen cookies from my pal Randy who produces and hosts my favorite Christmas radio program “Christmas Across the Lands.” I had cut several voice tracks for this year’s show, and he wanted to send me 12 dozen cookies! I told him I appreciate his kind offer, but one dozen would suffice, as I’m trying to watch my girlish figure! These cookies were amazing! Since I had Roxy with me we went over to Paty’s to have a late lunch on the patio, and then I started the task of trying to create a miniature Santa hat for my Frankie Christoween ornament. It was no easy feat! I’m going to do it MUCH differently the next time I attempt it, as I discovered several ways how NOT to do it this time. I’m also going to have my effects guy Jim Ojala remold the face, as the appliques I put on the master for corneas didn’t transfer very well in the molding process. I changed them with a new, more solid technique and I’ll take them to him next week to have it remolded. Trial and error, ya know. I had a ton of auditions and I took a few hours to complete them. I also decided to do a new version of Kermit the Frog’s “Bein’ Green” song, so I did a few versions of it and sent it over to my pal Scott Sebring to have him marry it to the karaoke track. I’d like to do a video of it with my Kermit replica Muppet around the neighborhood while everything is still green and lush; before summer sets in and dries everything out and makes it brown.

Friday the 16th – I ONLY NEED A SHORT NAP! – While I waited for the maids to arrive to clean Planet Wallywood I did a few auditions. The maids arrived and cleaned up nicely, and when they left I got inspired. I’ve had the blinds up in the window in my office area since I’ve owned the house. I can’t honestly remember when they were last cleaned. So I took down all 22 slats, took them upstairs and ran some hot water in the tum and put in some Dawn dish soap, and let them all soak for a while. They were FILTHY! Then I went to my garage and pulled out my large ladder, took it to my exterior windows outside my office area, and thoroughly cleaned the window! It was nice to be able to see daylight through them again! I worked for a while in my garage, consolidating things into boxes and throwing out a bunch of stuff I no longer needed. My trash bin filled up very quickly! Because of all the hard work, I rewarded myself with a tasty Domino’s pizza. After all that I needed a short nap. So early in the evening I retired to the Puppet Room to catch a few ZZZZ’s. But just as I had fallen asleep, I heard CRASH! BOOM! BANG! I turned on the light and looked around. I realized that my very nice metal Cookie Monster clock, which had been hanging on my wall over the Puppet Room bathroom door, had fallen off its nail. A few days ago the battery had run down, so I replaced the battery and rehung the clock. I must not have put it on securely enough, because the clock fell off the nail. I couldn’t even find the nail, so I’m thinking that it might have fallen INSIDE the drywall. But the clock was a mess, and wouldn’t work again. It was broken. So I trashed it and went back to sleep. But after a short amount of time I woke up to the sounds of my cat Spook puking. I always hate that. So I got up to clean up the mess. Then I tried to go back to sleep, but Spook jumped up on the bed and wanted pets. I swear, I’ve had my last cat. No more cats for me. I’m a dog person. I got up later to do organizing and touch-up work on some of the photos in my digital archive. Last Christmas my pal Officer Mark had cool Christoween wrapping paper made for me using some of the images from Christoween.net. I got the idea to start offering Christoween wrapping paper with some of the new images we created for the “Frankie-fied!” book, so I sent them over to him to see what he could come up with, since he’s so remarkably clever at doing those types of layouts. I made some Buffalo Mac and watched another episode of “The Lone Ranger.”

Saturday the 17th – VINYL FOR VACATION! – My pal Edi and I met at Bob’s Big Boy for lunch mid-afternoon and it was a blast. Then she came over to Planet Wallywood to go through my album collection. She and her husband Elliot will be going to Palm Springs soon for my birthday celebration, and the hotel room they get has record players in all the rooms. She didn’t care for their selection of vinyl records last time she was there, so I told her she could borrow some of mine so she could listen to what she wanted to in their room. Later I did some work around the house, did some more photo editing and retouching, and made my Saturday Night Super Saint Salad and watched another terrific episode of “The Saint!”

Sunday the 18th – SARA’S SLOPPY SUNDAY! – Our Los Angeles weather had turned hot and dry (just how I like it!) and it was giving us a taste of summery things to come! It was the perfect day to go shopping with my pal Sara to pick up supplies so she could make some Midwestern-style sloppy joes for dinner! With some wavy potato chips and onion dip, it was a meal fit for a summer’s evening! I did some auditions later, and then Michelle came over after she got off work. She heated up some of the leftover sloppy joe fixins so she could enjoy them too! DEEElicious! The previous night in my Tranquility Zone I was looking at my Mahna Mahna replica Muppet (which I had a puppet builder make about 6 years ago) and I realized that the seam on his arms hadn’t been “picked” yet. On fleece puppets, you can take a safety pin and gently pick out the pile of the fleece from the seam, which makes the seam virtually invisible. It’s precisely the reason the Muppets started using fleece on the Muppets in the first place! Seams disappear almost entirely. So I picked Mahna Mahna’s right arm (front and back) and it looked pretty darn good. I’ll pick out the seams on his left arm soon.

And how was YOUR week?!?!

PIX FROM THE WEEK

Back in the late 90s my friend Iraj Paran, a legendary artist at Hanna-Barbera studios, and I put together a pitch booklet for my pal Dustin Diamond. He wanted to play a live-action Shaggy from Scooby-Doo in a forthcoming movie. We thought he was such a perfect fit we came up with these graphics. I found the booklet (only 3 were ever produced initially) in some stuff I was going through in the garage. Good memories!

Here’s the first resin “pull” from the mold I had made of my Frankie Christoween ornament. I put on the base coat and then painted on the details. The head is only about 3″ tall, so it wasn’t easy to paint. But I’m pretty happy with the first attempt. The Santa hat will be redesigned and refabricated using different fabrics.

Edi snapped a picture of this freaky masked dude at Bob’s Big Boy. He looks very familiar!

Two mourning doves were outside my window grooming each other, and I thought it was so cute I shot some video. But look what happens when their beaks meet! It forms a heart! CUTE!

 

Our sumptuous Sunday night sloppy joe feast!

Here’s the difference between a ‘picked’ seam on fleece, and an ‘unpicked’ one.

My old pal Trent recently had a monumental birthday and his wife reached out to me (and many of his other friends) to shoot a birthday greeting as a surprise. Now that the surprise has been unveiled, I am at liberty to show you my contribution. I think it turned out really well!

This week’s featured Christoween Stalking(tm) is Draculatina!